Triple H has been (mostly) fantastic since turning corporate heel, but I was glad he didn’t open Smackdown. Partly because not every show needs to start the exact same way, but also because as good as Triple H has been lately, his segments aren’t exactly enjoyable. Effective, yes, but not necessarily enjoyable. They’re stressful man. I watch them through my fingers for fear Triple H could snap, pin Daniel Bryan down and give him a pink belly at any moment.

So yeah, it was a nice change to have Daniel Bryan face off against a villain who doesn’t have the power to ruin his life for reals. Also, Daniel Bryan got to continue his streak of delivering truths on Smackdown that he can’t on Raw (that the whole three-count thing doesn’t matter, because Orton was down for the minute-count at least anyway) and as a bonus Bryan didn’t have to deliver a single joke about Vickie being fat, ugly and/or a bitch. I would have accepted a joke about her hair though, because I’m pretty sure she’s making it look that bad on purpose. I mean, she has to be, right?

Worst: Uh, No, No, No? I guess?

Things did go a bit awry towards the end of the segment when Vickie announced Bryan would be in an 11-on-3 handicap match against The Shield, and no, The Shield isn’t suddenly every guy on the NXT roster — Bryan would be part of the 11. Oh, and Bryan would also get to fight the Shield last.

So, Vickie starts cackling and Michael Cole get shouting about what a punishment this match is, and I’m scratching my head. Granted, the way the match actually played out was, maybe, I guess, marginally unfair, but as far as injustices go, “it’s 11-on-3 and you don’t have to fight until the bad guys are good and softened up” is pretty weak sauce.

Worst: Shut The F–k Up Natalya

I’m not as down on Natalya as some of the folks ’round these parts. I still contend she’s good in the ring and, I dunno, I’m from Western Canada — good, sturdy, whiskey voiced blonde ladies is what’s going on up here. Anyways, Jesus Christ, why couldn’t Natalya’s headset have been broken again tonight? Every word out of her mouth during the AJ vs. Naomi match made me want to barf. I’m nominating “She’s a title holder, but I was born a champion” for most pathetic catchphrase of all time. Sure you were Nattie — and you’re also the prettiest girl in the whole wide world. And I’m the most handsome guy! Aren’t moms great?

Minor Best for Naomi’s new silver tights. Sorry about the diaper comments a couple weeks back girl.

Best: I Never Sausage a Terrible City!

So, Zeb Colter, who’s clearly not taking this seriously at all any more, decided to preface Jack Swagger and Santino’s match with a barrage of pasta-related puns, and well, it was great. I support 100% Zeb Colter’s transformation into the pull-my-finger “funny” uncle you just never mention politics, popular culture, music, TV, movies, sports that involve non-white players or what’s going on “in the city” around.

The match itself was pretty good too. Santino is of course Jack Swagger’s arch-nemesis, so Swagger was fired up (which is to say, he didn’t look completely stoned the entire match) and I have no problem with Santino rolling Swagger up for the win, because that’s just what happens whenever the these two guys are within 20-feet of one another. I hear they’ve had to start taking separate flights.

Best: Okay, Okay, I’m Saying Something Nice About This Ryback Segment

I wasn’t terribly enamoured with the Heyman/Ryback thing on Raw. Yeah, Heyman Strangelove-ing it up should be good for some moments, but man, Ryback. The guy’s just such a dork, all standing there with his bad fake tan and mom jeans and too-small leather vest. Ugh. His reaction to the Heyman kiss didn’t read like the actions of a complex, affection-craving character to me so much as a green performer going “Whoa, uhhhh, how do I react to this?” and settling on DO SOME RANDOM S–T THEN BELLOW MY CATCHPHRASE.

I haven’t been a big fan of the Ryback bully stuff either, because WWE clearly thinks they’re being pretty clever with it, and there’s nothing worse than a thing WWE thinks is clever. That said, they at least partially redeemed Ryback on Smackdown by letting him do the one thing he’s unquestionably great at — brutally pummelling random indie guys. For “bully Ryback hates bullies” to work, it needs to be taken to it’s logical extreme, and Ryback hollering anti-bullying phrases at 150-pound jobbers before eating them alive is about as logically extreme as it gets.

The match itself was the usual entertaining squash, with Ryback adding a few fun touches, like being all “I’m sorry, let me help you up” to his victim before pie-facing him into the corner. Hopefully this becomes a fixture of Ryback squashes — give Joe Pastygeek a hug then belly-to-belly overhead suplex him out of the ring into the third row. Offer Bob Skinnyfat a hearty pat on the back then forcibly shove his face through a table. The possibilities are endless.

Worst: Get The Title Back On This Man Immediately

I never would’ve imagined saying this a month ago, but WWE needs to get the championship back on Randy Orton. WWE Champion Randy Orton was the best heel WWE’s had in forever, and he hasn’t been quite the same since losing it. Orton’s promo on Smackdown wasn’t good guy Robo-Orton bad or anything, but it was a pretty uninspired YOU PEOPLE-fest. Bryan hasn’t lost a thing by being screwed out of the title multiple times, but you can see Orton’s motivation drying up faster than the baby oil on his pecs without the title.

Worst: 15 Straight Minutes of THE DAMNED NUMBERS GAME

Despite Michael Cole’s deeply held beliefs, THE DAMNED NUMBERS GAME doesn’t really come into play all that often in Shield matches. Typically the damned numbers are 3-on-3, 2-on-2 or 1-on-1 and the Shield guys usually spend the majority of their matches flopping onto their own heads for the good guys. They defy the orthodoxy that says a heel tag team’s place is to clubber until such time as the faces decides to beat them via fiery comeback — they instead lose most the match before winning with their dastardly brains. That’s why they’re different. That’s why they’re, in the immortal words of JBL, fun to watch.

Unfortunately the way this match was set up prevented the Shield from being their usual awesome selves. The Shield all got to be in the ring at once, while the other team had to file down to the ring one at a time, reducing the match to a series of dull beatdowns. Granted, “dudes who are always beating guys down” is about as far as WWE has got with character development for the Shield, but beatdowns are probably the least interesting thing they do.

Best: Roman Reigns General Zods Ziggler

That said, the handicap match wasn’t without its moments of joy, most notably the best Roman Reigns on Dolph Ziggler spear to date. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the best in terms of impact, but distance? No competition. I’m fairly sure Reigns temporarily gained the ability to fly mid-spear — they should have set up a cardboard Daily Planet model at ringside for Ziggler the crash through to really drive home the point (that point being that Roman Reigns may be from Krypton).

Best: History! Subtlety! In the Same Segment!

So, the 11-on-3 handicap match didn’t conclude because Triple H stormed out, cancelled the match then chewed Vickie out backstage, explaining that publicly punishing the 10 guys who made a stand on Raw might lead to further talent revolts.

They were clearly playing off the “we’re walking out because we’re afraid of Miz and R-Truth for uh, some reason” angle from a couple years back, and yet Hunter didn’t expressly mention this. No elaborate video package recap of the storyline. No interpretive puppet show. Nope! Just a subtle reference that added a little extra depth to Hunter’s character for those capable of paying attention and remembering things. In other words, actual, legitimate good writing on Smackdown, which means Smackdown must actually have writers. Who knew?

Minor Worst to Michael Cole for speculating that Triple H actually stopped the match because he was afraid RVD was going to beat the Shield single-handedly. No Cole. No, that wasn’t going to happen.

Best: The Wyatt Family’s Transformation Into The New Kane is Complete

People keep wondering when the Wyatt-brainwashed Kane is going to return, but I’m not sure I see the point — the Wyatts are Kane now. The final piece of the puzzle snapped into place on Smackdown when they officially became the “scary guys GMs send out to kill whoever they’re mildly annoyed with”, which isn’t the most exciting role for them, but eh, I think we can all agree the Wyatts being Kane is better than Kane being Kane.

Fantasy booking time — Kane needs to return as a loyal moonshine jug-toting, barefoot Wyatt clan member until he discovers who Bray Wyatt’s father is and destroys him for being in league with the REVENOOERS.

Best: Lillian Garcia’s Transformation Into The New Ricardo Is Just Beginning. Hopefully?

When Alberto Del Rio came out for his match with R-Truth or Kofi Kingston or a roughly human-sized bag of sand or whoever, Lillian Garcia gave him this totally cheery, enthusiastic introduction in Spanish. Has this been going on for a while and I just missed it? Either way, it needs to continue. Alberto has made a career of trying to lord relatively unexciting things like “renting cars” and “hiring an indie guy to say your name” over people — “banging the nearly 50-year-old announcer” would fit right in.

Best: When I Say “OOOOS!” Y’all Say “OHHH!”

So, the show ended with Bryan and the Usos scoring a rare decisive six-man tag victory over the Shield. It was very good. I know, I know, I should stop with the crazy contrarian opinions already. Daniel Bryan and the Shield of course had a lot to do with the match being great, but I don’t want to undersell the Usos’ contributions. Honestly, the Usos may be my favorite good guys in the WWE right now. Wait, no, hear me out…

I’m not saying they’re the best faces in the WWE, but everything Bryan does comes with this accompanying low-level anxiety that the rug could still be pulled out, and as good as some of the Heyman vs. Punk stuff has been, I can’t shake the feeling he isn’t performing to his full potential. On the other hand, when the Usos come out all I think is, “Oh, yay! The Usos!”

Sometimes watching a couple nice guys with a cool entrance superkick jerks is all I want. Actually, that’s pretty much always all I want.

– Naomi is far and away the most athletic diva WWE has ever had IMO. She’s so smooth and fluid in the ring, she deserves a lot better than being Brodus’ cheerleader. I wish her and AJ coulda got more time because if they let AJ use more of her moveset, they coulda had a great match. (I remember them having a really good one on NXT)

– The finishing sequence on the main event was beautiful. Uso #1 swan dives over the dop. Rollins clears the top rope EASILY and does a flip onto Uso and Roman. Uso #2 does a springboard moonsault on top of all 3.

A triple threat TLC match between the Usos, Rollins/Reigns and the Cesaro/Swagger could give the old school TLC matches a run for their money

Another good write-up, fellow Mother Canucker. One thing I love about Canadians doing B &W’s is that I get to see the videos that they are are talking about in their posts. I’m fairly certain Americans can still view the Canadian clips, too, which makes it even weirder why Brandon doesn’t use them.

You’re so right about Nattie. At no point did she ever make sense about AJ. And that whole bullshit about being born champion? The fact she was born into the Hart family should make her well aware that you’ve got to earn wrestling titles, damnit! Bret used to talk about that all the time in his wrestling column he used to write. First she botches the sharpshooter and now this? Makes you wonder if she wasn’t raised a Hart.

Naomi looks like the bombdotcom in her new attire. I wish she’d get rid of the rear view so I can take her more serious.

I don’t know if this has been brought up before but is there any particular reason this BnW is done as a slideshow?

Not a major deal (and I certainly have enjoyed them enough to comment here) but it is slightly annoying to have to scroll back to the top and hit “next”. It disrupts the flow of what is otherwise a very enjoyable article.

It has its pros and cons.
Pro: it loads faster
Con: you have to scroll up (even if you use your arrow keys if your in a pc you have to scroll up to read from the top, otherwise you’re at the bottom of the page)

Worst part was Cole saying that RVD was going to beat The Shield. Absolute bollocks. Your point of Smackdown having better writers is valid. I mean HHH playing off the past subtly and Bryan pointing out the truth, Orton’s promo this week should be happening on their flagship show. And Shield retribution thing with the 11 on 3 handicap series ? they could have played off an hour with this on RAW.

The thing that pisses me off the most about Natalya on commentary is how obviously she’s just rattling off scripted talking points ” I was born a champion” (No, you were BORN Natalie, you have to EARN a championship), “AJ is just jealous of us” (A point that AJ has already convincingly dismissed several times. Although I know in the end that that’s the version of history that’ll prevail from a WWE standpoint, no matter what AJ actually says or does.) She is completely incapable of coming up with coherent arguments off the top of her own head.

Then AJ beats Naomi clean with the same submission that Nattie’s tapped to on numerous occasions (invalidating a lot of the comments that Nattie just made to try and dismiss her abilities and her worth as a competitor), Suddenly the fountain of verbal diarrhea from Mrs. Kidd just dries up and all she does is smirk derisively and ignore what just happened in front of her, like a bad debater who’s been thoroughly trounced but lacks the class to concede gracefully. I don’t know how the hell anybody can be watching these segments and seriously believe that AJ is the heel in this storyline.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. In 20+ years of watching wrestling, I’ve never been more uncomfortable than listening to Natalya on commentary. Cole and JBL weren’t just running circles around her, they weren’t even racing on the same track. They literally disceted every single one of her prepared sound bytes within seconds and her only response was to just move on to her next talking point, as if she thinks, “maybe THIS will be the one that finally wins them over, gets them on my side, gets them to see that I really am the one in the right here.”
My only complaint with JBL & Cole was that after spectacularly gutting Natalya’s entire argument, they immediately hopped back into “AJ’s a loony whack job” mode, as if they suddenly remembered AJ is supposed to be the heel and we’re supposed to have a reason to not like her.

Paraphrasing: ‘Yes, the ref counted to three too quickly but he could have counted to twenty because Randy Orton was knocked out’. That’s exactly the point Bryan should have made on Monday but the problem is you can’t make a valid point to Triple H when there’s no comeback to it, so it gets relegated to the show nobody watches.

I liked Randy coming back using lawyer talk, “I got fast counted I should still be champion.” It doesn’t matter if he was KO’d, in the end he lost via “:unfair” circumstances. Just like in the NFL if a player fumbles the ball but the whistle blew the ball dead by accident, it doesn’t matter if there was 11 players all standing around the lose ball on the other team with no one in sight, the play was blown dead, there’s nothing you can say or do to argue against it even though logically the team that fumbled had no chance to recover it.

Great read, and you’re dead on about the Shield. There aren’t many stables that I remember that got beat up as often and as regularly as them. Seth Rollins spends roughly 50% of his matches on his head.

The Usos are fucking awesome and need to win the titles asap, if for no other reason than we need to make it look like ANY OTHER TEAM could realistically win them.

Another example of the kind of witless selective amnesia we’re being subjected to on commentary lately: “Isn’t it strange how Alberto Del Rio just attacked Van Dam out of the blue like that right after Triple H gave him a rematch for the title at Night Of Champions. I mean why would he have done that if he didn’t already know about the match ahead of time?” BECAUSE THEY HAD ALREADY BEEN FEUDING FOR THE PAST MONTH YOU NO MEMORY HAVING, CAN BARELY BE ARSED TO WATCH THE SHOW THAT HE’S ON EVERY WEEK, JACKASS!

great write up, nate. you make my saturdays ! a few points on smackdown here :

– I thought vickie’s hair was fabulous.

– the guy that faced ryback is OVW’s heavyweight champion, jamin olivincia. and many people ask for his autograph, mr . micheale-“I said something funny :D teehee” cole.

– orton post-wwe championship reign isn’t bad ! his beat down on the miz was THE BEST. but his promo here isn’t really his fault as much as it is wwe’s problem since the brand split ended and everyone were featured on both raw and smackdown until they got overexposed and their booking became lazy, repititive and just to fill time.

– kofi kingston continues to be the only guy to sell ambrose’s face planting finisher and sell it so well.

– how hilarious is it how del rio was just standing behind van dam and the camera in that room waiting for hhh to get out of the only door so that he can attack XD and why was the doctor just standing there waiting for referees to break the thing ?! and how did 2 referees know about the attack from far away (based on the time it took them to reach there) ?! they couldn’t have heard it or heard the doctors “help, please !” shouts !

– micheale cole is usually 434 times more unbearable and stupid in his arguments on smackdown without jerry lawler next to him. I hated E-V-E-R-Y single thing he said, dammit ! but him sticking up for bryan and claiming that “he won’t take short cuts to win championships” just 2 years after bryan’s MITB cash in frustrates me the most …

– yes, actually, lilian garcia has once introduced ricardo in spanish, who thanked her and introduced del rio in english to return the favor, around the time of royal rumble. and she’s been introducing del rio in spanish very often since then.

I actually enjoyed Michael Cole for the first time ever on this Smackdown. I remember him making me laugh twice, ok it s not Taz levels but it s a lot more than usual. I especially enjoyed his line about no one wanting this nobody s autograph because he said it literally two seconds after I turned around and said it as a joke to my brother. We re now telepath buddies.

Good article, Nate. You’re getting better at writing in this break-down format and it’s making the articles seem more professional and enjoyable to read.

Gonna have to disagree with you on that 11-3 handicap match though. It’s probably my favorite thing WWE has done in a while. It felt like one of those multi-floor secret dungeons/missions that are in RPG’s or modern beat-em-ups where you have to face weaker to tougher competition, getting weaker themselves over the time, ending with an exclusive mega-harder-than-the-real-final-boss boss that takes all your effort to beat (Daniel Bryan is definitely this in today’s WWE, to the point where The Shield are the ones in peril facing him).

I understand the story reasons the match was called off, but much like Bryan’s recent gauntlets’, I really wished that it had been allowed to be finished. Seriously, an hour-long multi-competitor match always featuring at least 3 out of four good wrestlers?! Yes!*

I didn’t necessarily mind the concept of the 11-on-3 match, I just didn’t like it being presented as a dastardly punishment without proper explanation. Also, as I explained, it didn’t really play to the Shield’s strengths. It would have worked better with The Wyatts — Harper and Rowan pulverizing everyone as Wyatt provides theatrics would have been entertaining.

I think the whole thing about The Shield getting their asses beat is a bit shortsighted. I remember the thing that has made the Shield so impressive is that they go toe to toe with their opponents, often getting upper hands, and then win. That’s surprising and awesome coming from a heel group in the WWE. It’s only really recently that they’ve taken losses (and very few, which is good) and in those losses have looked lost rather than cohesive.

I think it’s great that Daniel Bryan and The Usos won (all have beaten The Shield before), but it’s important to point out that The Shield haven been severely weakened by what of the gauntlet they went through is part of the reason they lost.

I don’t believe in The Wyatt’s as I do The Shield. The Shield have been running the place for nearly a year, dominantly. The Wyatt’s are good, but I haven’t seen why they have the ability to tear through a roster. They Wyatt’s are about sacrificing self for the will of a single mind, The Shield are (professional) individuals working together for a single purpose.

Well, they still mostly go toe-to-toe. They’re not outright doing the cowardly heel thing. But if you keep track, they do a lot more selling than your average heel tag team that wins as often as they do.

Oh, yeah, sure sure. The Shield knows how to work a match and make it exciting. Like most tags, it does usually come down to single team members, with The Shield more than most looking devastated on the outside. But The Shield do usually have the more memorable, powerful offense in their matches, working together to destroy opposition. Their opponents usually get some babyface fire, hit their “five moves” and hurt The Shield that way. The Shield still stand strong when it’s all over.